Wandering with You: April 2017

Everyone at OHTO loves this time of year! Not only do we welcome spring, but we also hit the road in anticipation, travelling throughout the region on our annual Road Trip to meet with you, our industry partners. The team has just returned and couldn’t be more excited about the enthusiastic response we received around the development and launch of Come Wander. We were also taken aback by the amazing turn out! We met with more than 180 stakeholders over the course of 5 stakeholder sessions, to share the journey of Come Wander, provide information on how you can get involved, and detail our plans for the launch of the brand, scheduled for May 19th.

We’d like to extend a huge thank you to all those who attended a session. It was incredibly encouraging to witness the high levels of engagement and participation across the region and we look forward to working together, moving forward to inspire visitation and share the stories of Ontario’s Highlands through Come Wander. We encourage you to continue to engage with us, to share your story, to keep us in the loop with any exciting experiences you have to offer, and to reach out to us for support or with questions along the way.

These sessions were hosted with the overall goal of painting a complete picture of Come Wander, explaining content marketing, sharing opportunities to get involved, and creating excitement for this collaborative approach. We are confident that we achieved these goals as attendees at each stop, were eager to take part in the conversation as we recapped the journey of Come Wander, discovered our inner wanderers together, highlighted the simplest ways for industry members to get involved, detailed the launch plans for Come Wander, shared an overview of OHTO’s industry development programs, and put ourselves in the shoes of a wandering persona during a breakout session.

As a reminder, the simplest ways to get involved and share your story through Come Wander are to:

We were especially encouraged by the collaborative brainstorming and ideas shared by groups through our breakout exercise. During this opportunity, teams were provided with a worksheet and asked to view our communities from the perspective of a Wandering Persona. This visitor-first perspective highlighted the hidden gems and unique experiences that are abundant throughout Ontario’s Highlands. Participants expressed that this exercise was useful in providing a new approach to how they describe the amazing experiences of the region, and also saw how it could be applied to their own business or organization. In addition, attendees were provided with a more detailed worksheet filled with questions to guide in uncovering and defining their unique stories.

With the launch date less than a month away, we are looking forward to working collaboratively to invite visitors to Come Wander Ontario’s Highlands. And a special reminder that if you are interested in signing up for a One-on-One Engagement Session, feel free to email me at julie.mulligan@ohto.ca.